


Unpleasant Memories

by ceresilupin



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, M/M, Solitary Confinement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 18:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2078406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceresilupin/pseuds/ceresilupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An cave-in awakens memories from incidents in Thorin's past, and Bilbo is there to listen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unpleasant Memories

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for emotional abuse and physical harm suffered by Thorin.
> 
> Originally a kink-meme fill for this prompt: "I'd love to see a fic going in-depth into the gradual stages of Thrór's gold-sickness. In a lot of fics he's portrayed as a villain of sorts- evil from the get-go, but I'd rather see him as a kind and well-loved King, however, the illness creeps up on him; a slow progression that goes almost unnoticed until it's taken a complete grasp on him."
> 
> http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/11476.html?thread=22918356#t22918356

“Unpleasant memories,” Thorin said, raking his hair away from his face. “Nothing more.”  
  
“Well, I should think so!” Bilbo was dithering and twittering around, legs pumping double-time to keep up. Dis clumped along a few steps behind. “You were buried for days! You must be starving, at least. Ehm—“ He shot a significant glance at a nearby servant, waiting outside the entrance to the royal quarters.  
  
Thorin waved the hobbit and the servant away, apparently intent on nothing but escape. “Later,” he ground out.  
  
Bilbo stopped dead at this, temporarily struck dumb by the thought of a dwarf turning down food, and then scurried to catch up. He just made it inside the royal quarters before Dis shut the door.  
  
“Are you sure?” Bilbo prodded, a shade too loud in the softer silence of the smaller, carpeted hall. He watched Thorin sink into the first available seat and cradle his head, and began shooting desperate looks at Dis. “Should I send for Oin, are you – you’re certain about the food, of course. Do you want me to leave, I can leave—“  
  
Thorin waved him down again, and reluctantly he subsided into silence. Dis poured a glass of wine, depositing it on the table at Thorin’s side without a word, and then went to open a window. Confused but determined to be helpful, Bilbo padded after her and held the heavy fabric aside as she worked.  
  
The Royal Wing was one of the few areas that possessed windows at all, and they were tall and thin, narrow as archer’s slits. Bilbo, whose own extravagant quarters were contained within this suite, had thought nothing of their presence; who didn’t like windows and sunlight, after all?  
  
 _Well,_ he mused, watching Thorin tip his head back and breathe in slowly, _most dwarves seem perfectly happy without them, now that I think of it._ And he would have assumed that Thorin was one of them – until now. The air that flowed through the narrow opening was just shy of freezing, but it seemed to reinvigorate the king.  
  
Creeping closer, Bilbo noticed a fine layer of sweat on his face and damping his hair, despite the thin fabric of his undertunic. He had shed his furs and armor underground, using them to wrap Bofur, who had been suffering from shock. After being freed from their impromptu prison and seeing his friend to the Halls of Healing, Thorin had done nothing but rinse the worst of the dust from his arms and face and then – entirely uncharacteristically – make his escape while everyone was still distracted.  
  
The would-be assassin’s body had been excavated from the cave-in shortly after Thorin and Bofur. Bilbo hadn’t realized then how distracted Thorin was, but perhaps he should have. Dwalin had been intent on chasing down the rest of the conspiracy, and Fili and Kili were plainly thirsty for revenge. Yes, Bilbo thought again, Thorin’s retreat to his rooms was entirely unlike him.  
  
 _I should check his pulse_ , the inane thought came,  _make sure he’s not injured—_  
  
Thorin looked over, and caught him mid-creep. Bilbo froze, but the King did not snap or roar, just watched him tiredly, left elbow propped on his left leg, right hand on his right knee. They regarded one another in silence.  
  
“You look . . . quite exhausted,” Bilbo offered tentatively, and very quietly. Dis was still nearby, watching with that sharp stillness that he saw so often in Thorin and Fili, and so rarely in Kili. “There’s more to this than a simple cave-in and assassination attempt, isn’t there?”  
  
Thorin looked to Dis without a change of expression. She shrugged, her thumbs hooking on the wide belt snugged beneath her bosom. “I didn’t say anything,” she said.

Thorin glanced away, gazing at the floor past his left foot, hair falling around his face like a curtain.  
  
Dis was the one to break the silence, moving away from the window and heading for the door. “I will check on the miner,” she said, her warm, alto voice a soothing balm to Bilbo’s still-flinching nerves. “And I will notify the Council of your continued existence.” She shot hobbit and dwarf a warning glance as she opened the door. “Stay here, and do nothing until I return.”  
  
Bilbo straightened, relieved that someone, at least, was in charge, and even more relieved that the someone in question wasn’t him. He caught a glimpse of confused movement in the hallway, as Dwalin’s soldiers clustered around her defensively, and then the door was shut again.  
  
“Well,” Bilbo said, into the silence. “Just us, then.” Tentatively, he slipped into the seat on the other side of the small table, its back to the stone wall, just like Thorin’s. “Will you – will you tell me what’s going on, then? I mean,” he hesitated, “if you want to.”  
  
A dark, bleak gaze traveled over his face, and then Thorin tossed back the glass of wine. “Very well,” he said, as deep and cool as ever, with a hint of something ragged on the edges. “I will try.”  
  
~  
  
Thorin was the first of Thror’s grandchildren, and never had greater luxuries been bestowed upon any dwarfling. He only had to breathe his wish, and his grandfather would move mountains to see it granted. Amused by the idea of boats? A trip to Esgaroth was in order! Curious about elves? There would be a royal banquet, and King Thranduil was invited! Bored with his sword practice? A supply convoy needed an escort, and the small boy and his royal guard would accompany them, to see how it was done.  
  
And if he was fascinated by the Arkenstone? Well then, nothing would do but for the dwarfling to be lifted up and the secret catch pressed. With his feet planted firmly on the seat of the throne, his grandfather’s hands still snug around his ribcage, prince and king alike watched the jewel tumble into his small hands with awe and amazement.  
  
Thorin remembered that moment. The feel of the stone, not hot but not cold, seeming to tremble finely with its own secret energy. He remembered the tickle of his grandfather’s beard on his back, and his warm laugh as he peered over his grandson’s small shoulder. He remembered, and would go on remembering, for all his life.  
  
He had half-turned in his grandfather’s arms and extended the stone to him. “It’s beautiful,” he’d said, done with the stone and intending to give it back, like a good boy.  
  
Thror beamed at him, kindly and gentle, and captured his outstretched hand with own, much larger, mitts. “It’s yours,” he said. “All of this is yours, my lad.”  
  
“Not  _yet,_ ” Thorin had argued, childish and wrinkling his nose. “You’re the King, it’s yours!”  
  
Thror chuckled and swung him back into his arms, sitting properly on the throne, dwarfling and Arkenstone cradled in his lap. “It is only mine for a short while,” he rumbled, as Thorin looked out from the throne, a view he would not enjoy again for many, many years to come. “I was only holding it for you. All wealth is fleeting, Thorin, and all honor is borrowed. We take it up and then we pass it along. Only our dwarvish souls endure, as great Mahal intended.”  
  
The metal decorations of his grandfather’s beard pressed into the back of his head, and his bulbous nose pressed against his crown, as the old man kissed him atop his child-short hair. “Remember that,” he ordered.  
  
“I will,” Thorin had promised, but in truth, he had already begun to forget. It would be years – centuries – before the memory would come back to him, to cut him anew with its foresight and clarity.

~  
  
Bilbo had replenished Thorin’s glass as he was speaking, and then filled them a plate from one of the many low tables always piled with food. He swirled the wine in his own glass, peering into it, as Thorin’s voice trailed off.  
  
“You’ve . . . never spoken much, about your grandfather,” he said. “It sounds like you were very close.” He paused, thinking of his parents’ parents, whom he had not known well. “He must have loved you very much.”  
  
“Yes,” Thorin rasped. He had declined the offer of food and resumed his bleak staring into nothing. “For a while, he did.”  
  
“No,” Bilbo interrupted, sharply but softly. “No, none of that, ‘for a while’ business. That’s not how it works, you know that.” He waited, and then prompted, “Thorin?”  
  
Thorin didn’t argue, but neither did he agree. Instead, he continued the story.

~  
  
If not for Thorin’s parents, firm but even-handed, busy with their duties but still deeply involved in the lives of their children, Thorin would have grown into a spoiled brat. Instead, they filled his days with lessons and work, insisting that a young prince should not only learn a craft, but should learn it early, to demonstrate his worthiness for the throne.  _After all,_  his father said, half-laughing, half-serious,  _this is not a kingdom of Men. If a more suitable dwarfling presents himself, why, he or she might be named Heir instead._  
  
Thorin was fairly certain his father was bluffing – but only fairly. He enjoyed the challenges, in any event, and his grandfather was not so present that his childish fits of resistance came to any consequence. Instead, his weekends and occasional lunches with the old man became brief, glorious respites from a full and busy life. He was free, with Thror, to chatter himself hoarse, to gorge himself on sweets, even to sing and dance on the table. His earliest memories were of singing rhymes about rudeness, belching, and farts (which Thror found hilarious) and then, as he got older, about skinny elves and knobbly men, banging elbows into doors and tripping over feet (which Thror also adored).  
  
As he grew older still, Thror would call upon him to attend royal banquets, and inevitably he ended up seated next to whatever lovely lass had caught his fancy that week. He was much too awkward and shy to make any serious impressions, too young to even think about courting properly, but he enjoyed the female attention all the same. If it was painfully embarrassing when the old man winked and guffawed every time he made a lady laugh, well, he would never heart Thror’s feelings by telling him so.  
  
As he began seeking out more opportunities to flirt with eligible young ladies, not to mention carry on the rough-and-tumble flings that dwarven boys were expected indulge in with each other, he was assigned more and more responsibilities. He was given command over a part of the army, and began looking to the world outside, as terrain in which he might prove himself no longer a little prince, but a dwarf in his own right.  
  
On his fortieth birthday, he helped his father fight off a dragon attack. It was naught but a skirmish, caused by a small wyrm whose eyes were too big for its stomach, deluded in thinking he could crack the tough nut that was Erebor. Aglow with success and the warm outpouring of admiration from his people, Thorin began leading his own patrols past Dale and around the surrounding forests and fields, on the lookout for other dragons, bandits, and orcs.  
  
This was where the trouble began. On his forty-fifth birthday, he was gravely wounded, nearly to the death. He was brought back to Erebor not to recover, but – according to the grim healers who spoke with the royal family – so that he might die in peace.  
  
~  
  
“Obviously, you didn’t die.”  
  
The room was becoming quite cold. Bilbo had tucked his feet up under himself, hands in his sleeves. Thorin had left his own chair and begun pacing, slow and measured at times, heavy and harried at others. Despite the chill of the room, he was still sweating and his breath would occasionally harshen, as if he couldn’t get enough air. At those times, he would go to the window and press his face to the narrow opening, and Bilbo would be at a loss as how to respond – offer comfort? Change the subject? Pretend he noticed nothing?  
  
He settled for awkwardly keeping the conversation alive, although in truth, he barely remembered what had started it or what the point of it was. But Thorin should not be left to brood alone, as was his wont, and Bilbo may not be helping much – probably he was not helping at all – but he would not shame himself by running away. He would cheerfully forfeit his every scrap of food and wealth, not to mention what little blood and muscle was his to command, if only to see Thorin smile, all the while knowing life was not that simple.  
  
 _We will muddy along together,_ he determined. _Somehow._  
  
Bilbo watched Thorin’s blue-clad shoulders rise and fall, his thick fists resting on the stone wall beside his forehead. He waited until the breath was slow and even again before asking, “How did your grandfather react?”

~  
  
The greatest healers were called, even elven physicians from Greenwood, Lothlorien, and Rivendell.  
  
Incredibly, impossibly, Thorin survived.  
  
First he was given leave to move about his room, provided a healer was always nearby. His strength began to return, and he was released into the Royal Quarters, and then the palace, always with a diligent helper at his side. Once he was well enough to sit for hours at a time, a banquet was held to assure the populace of his well-being and continued life. His wounds healed with next to no scarring, although his injuries had been grievous, and slowly, his family relaxed, releasing the visiting healers from their service with wagonloads of gold as thanks.  
  
He did not resume his patrols.  
  
At first, it seemed only practical. He was recovering, and then his father and grandfather resisted letting him out of their sight. He even felt some trepidation of own. What would it be like to fight now, having come so close to death? Having weathered and endured so much pain? He had seen dwarves lose their courage after such events before – what if he was one of them?

He swore he would not be. But he was afraid, and the coddling from his family fed into his weakness, allowing him an easy escape.  
  
Weeks passed, and he broached the topic again, only to be shot down. Unable to push for what he truly wasn’t sure he wanted, Thorin accepted Thror’s dismissal, and then asked Thrain to intervene on his behalf later that night. His father accepted the task gravely, but returned with ill-news – Thorin was to be confined to the mountain, and all patrols were canceled. The bandits and orcs could not breach their defenses, after all. The Men and Elves were on their own.  
  
Thorin was stung. He waited a week, and then went to with the old dwarf himself. “I have failed you,” he acknowledged, pacing in front of the throne – the throne where he had stood and sat as a child, in the lap of the king who refused to see him for the man he had become. “I know I have. But I will not fail you again. To withdraw these patrols is to signal weakness to—“  
  
“No,” Thror had interrupted, gesturing with his right hand, a slicing motion that stopped him cold. “My decision is final. Your life is too valuable to risk—“  
  
Thorin’s temper, frayed by his own unacknowledged anxieties and fears, flared. He interrupted. “Your Majesty, I cannot spend my life straitened and secured behind these walls—“  
  
Thror’s answering roar caught him by such surprise that he almost laughed at the sheer strangeness and absurdity of it. “Do you question your King?”  
  
Thorin swallowed his knee-jerk response, eyes flicking to the stone-faced guards nearby. How humiliating to be seen so surprised. “No, I . . . no.” Was that a stammer? Surely not.  
  
He stepped back warily, flushed and uneasy. He had heard his grandfather raise his voice, of course, but only to settle an unruly crowd of dwarves or bark out orders – never directed in anger at an individual, least of all himself. “No, Your Majesty, never.”  
  
“Well,” Thror said, wiping a hand over his face. “Well.”

Thrain, who had been observing this debate in silence, stepped forward. “Let me speak with my son, Father. I will not let him put himself in danger this way.”

“Yes,” Thror had said, sounding somehow distant and almost . . . lost? “Yes, you should do that. Had you not chosen to hide behind my grandson, this would not be an issue at all!” The sharp words and stern glare sent Thorin another step back. He had known his father and grandfather to disagree, to debate over maps and documents, with frustration and impatience, but this. . . it was not just the words, he felt, but the tone. Hateful and shrewd. Or perhaps it was Thror’s hands, tightening on his sword hilt, as if he dared the unthinkable – brandishing a weapon at his own child!  
  
His father astounded him as well, bowing his head respectfully without even a blink of his good eye. As if this was not at all unusual. “Yes, Your Majesty. The failure is my own.”  
  
“Yes,” said Thror, unappeased. “Yes, it is. Go now, Thorin, and put this foolishness from your head. You are too precious to us to risk.” He had smiled, a forced smile, and Thorin noticed then the thin layer of sweat coating his face.

He had bowed, powerfully disoriented by this encounter, but with enough sense to remain respectful. The guards, standing like statues nearby, hadn’t even blinked at the old man’s outburst. Thorin noticed then, too, that his father had sent the other Councilors and courtiers away before the debate had begun in earnest – had he known this would happen? Had this – perish the thought! – happened before?  
  
“The King is afeared,” was all Thrain said, when Thorin asked, hushed as they left the throne room together. “He is worried for his line, and your life.”  
  
“Since when?” Thorin demanded. “You are strong, I am recovered. There is nothing to fear! There is no sense to this, I tell you. There must be some politics at work—“  
  
Thrain cuffed him lightly upside the head. “You do not understanding everything in the world yet, lad,” he grunted. Throin merely rubbed his ear and scowled. “Let it be for now.”  
  
But Throin pushed, of course he pushed. He was young and headstrong, convinced that there was nothing he could not accomplish, if he simply tried hard enough. He heard muttering and grumbles from the Council about the lack of patrols, the insecurity of their lands, and the threats to trade. He let them act as his ground forces, sending them ahead to prepare the field for his attack.  
  
They presented their request for the resumption of the patrols, with Throin and Thrain in attendance. With a great show of reluctance, Thorin bowed to their demands, and suggested to his grandfather that he take his Company out hunting again. The teeming crowd of witnesses nodded and shouted their approval, some of them even chanting Thorin’s name, a sound that sent thrills up his spine. Thror’s eyes flashed: he knew he was trapped by his grandson’s maneuverings. Thrain looked on stoically, and it was impossible to tell his thoughts.  
  
The king had no choice but to agree to resume the prince’s patrols. The crowd erupted at the news, bragging that the Longlegs and Pointy-Ears would come to know the superiority of Durin’s Folk again. They patted Thorin’s shoulders and nearly bowled him over with their enthusiasm and support.  
  
Every time he returned home, the King came out to greet him, to assure himself of his grandson’s well-being. There was enough real worry in his eyes that Thorin felt guilty, more guilty than impatient, even. But not guilty enough to relent. Thror would insist that Thorin escort him to the throne room, to his quarters, or to the new treasure room he was building in the back of the mountain. They spoke of Thorin’s skirmishes, Thorin soothed his anxious grandfather’s worries with heroic tales, and generally felt like a man indeed.  
  
The next time he was injured – a simple arrow wound to the thigh, nothing serious at all – he was imprisoned.  
  
~  
  
 _“Imprisoned?”_  Bilbo demanded.  
  
Upon noticing Bilbo’s shivers, Thorin had closed the window and led him from the receiving room to his own private quarters. There he stoked up the fire, ignoring Bilbo’s half-hearted protests that he was fine, really, perfectly all right, no need to go to any trouble.  
  
They sat together beside the fire, a plush fur at their feet, in silk armchairs with elaborately carved stone legs. The table between them was also laden with food, although Thorin barely touched it. Bilbo ate a little, feeling compelled – even a hobbit would be hard-pressed to eat all of the food laid out in the Royal Wing. Some days he felt positively wasteful, walking by, even though he knew much of it was given to poorer laborers and miners at the end of the day.  
  
“Why on earth were you imprisoned?” Bilbo wanted to know.  
  
Thorin half-smiled bitterly. “Can you not guess?” Bilbo stared at him speechlessly, and he continued, rotating a gold goblet between his heavy palms. “You saw the same madness overtake me yourself. Surely you remember.”  
  
Bilbo’s eyebrows lifted with sudden understanding. “The – the gold-sickness,” he murmured. He busied himself with a drink of wine, and then, frustrated, set the goblet aside. “But – Thorin, that doesn’t make any sense. Did he at least  _say_ , or did he just. . . .”

Thorin stared into the flames. “He did not explain,” he said, deep and halting. “And my father was . . . less than forthcoming.”  
  
“Trying to protect his father’s pride,” Bilbo guessed sympathetically. The look in Thorin’s eye gave him pause. “Right?”  
  
Thorin sighed, and sat back in his chair. “I had not realized the tensions that existed between them. Not until their argument, until my grandfather spoke to my father so disgracefully, with such disgust in his eyes.”  
  
Bilbo shook his head to clear it. ‘Disgust’ did not fit any of his hobbit notions of family, but perhaps dwarves were different in this, as in so many other things? “They . . . didn’t get along?”  
  
Thorin rested his chin on his hand, scraping his thumb over his still-short beard. “I do not know how long there was a divide between them,” he said. “I saw them with a child’s eyes, a child’s mind, and a child’s understanding.”  
  
“Of course,” Bilbo murmured. “Who knows what grown-ups really get up to? It’s all just a confusing blur, to a faunt. Or a dwarfling, I suppose.”  
  
Thorin dipped his chin slightly. “Precisely.”  
  
“But after that fight. . . .”  
  
“I paid more attention.” Thorin sighed. “It became clear that my grandfather was a stern taskmaster when it came to my father. He set him to more and more impossible deeds, and accepted nothing but perfection. He used threats and punishments to motivate him, not praise. He seemed to care nothing for his well-being.” Thorin’s brow grew darker still. “There were times when he seemed . . . when he suggested that Thrain’s life was an acceptable tithe, and he wondered why he hadn’t died rather than report failure again.”  
  
Bilbo was stunned, trying to reconcile this behavior with the kindly, doting old man that Thorin had described initially. “Truly?” he asked, startled by how small his voice had become.  
  
Thorin met his eyes for the first time in a while, eyelids lowering in a brief nod. “Truly,” he said.  
  
“Well, I. . . .” Bilbo twisted to peer down into his goblet, still resting on the table at his left. As if by curling in on himself, he could keep the negativity at bay. “I mean, do you think he was always that way? Towards your father?”

Thorin was silent for a long while, peering into the fire. Bilbo was glad to see that the sweat and pallor from earlier was gone, but now he just looked exhausted. Of course, he had been awake for days, trapped in an abandoned mine with a murderous criminal and a wounded friend.  
  
If not for that bloody rebellion, if Bofur had not tried to end the battle by negotiating with his old friend personally. . . . No, Bilbo corrected himself, Bofur had been brave, and the rebellion short-sighted and stupid, but not deadly. If Bofur hadn’t been taken hostage, of course, things would have gone very differently. And if the would-be assassin hadn’t demanded to speak with the king himself. . . .  
  
Bilbo had assumed – incorrectly, as it turned out – that the dwarves would somehow know if a mine was rigged to collapse, and so hadn’t voiced his concerns when Thorin agreed to go in alone. He hadn’t been overly worried by Thorin’s lack of weapons, having seen the dwarf take down orcs and goblins with nothing but his bare hands, and he hadn’t worried overly for Bofur, who was tough as any dwarf, and already assuring them in shouted jests that he was fine, just a bit dinged.  
  
When the wall had come crashing down, he’d wanted to do nothing so much as smack himself on the forehead for his willful stupidity. That only the assassin was dead was a blessing from Mahal himself.  
  
“I cannot say for sure,” Thorin finally said, and Bilbo had to drag himself back to the conversation. Right, Thror and Thrain, the gold-sickness, Thorin imprisoned for coming home injured. He’d asked if Thror and Thrain were always at odds, and Thorin was saying he wasn’t sure. “But I suspect so.”  
  
“That must have been incredibly difficult, for him,” Bilbo murmured. Thorin grunted. Disquieted, Bilbo leaned on the other armrest, trying to see Thorin’s face. “Why was he different with you?”  
  
Thorin’s smiles often looked strange on his face, like they weren’t sure they belonged there, but this one – this one looked natural. And perhaps unsurprisingly given that, it was twisted by bitterness and self-recrimination.  
  
“He said I was his treasure,” Thorin said, his deep voice rough with anger and something like a child’s pain, lost, hurt, and _confused_. “He said that I would his, that he would protect me, and that in time I would learn to obey.”

~

The first imprisonment was for a week, a comfortable cell in the palace dungeons. Thror visited daily and argued extensively with his grandson about the need for his patrols, about his understanding of the mountain’s politics, even his skill in the forge. It left Thorin thoroughly frustrated and feeling as if his grandfather was attempting to put him in a child’s seat that no longer fit him.  
  
He was given leave afterwards to continue his patrols, with one caveat: “Remember my lesson.”

Confused, his pride challenged, Thorin struck out the very next night, already rehearsing what he would say in the next argument, the next debate.  
  
Every patrol resulted in fights with the king. Sometimes he was cold and dismissive, as if carven from stone, other times he blazed with rage. Thorin was often confined to his quarters afterwards, at the king’s whim. Frerin tried to convince him that these arguments were unhealthy, that he should obey the king’s orders, that he was becoming obsessed, but he refused. Even if he had wanted to obey – and he didn’t, particularly – it would have been too embarrassing, to tell the Council that he would not continue the patrols after they had endorsed him so enthusiastically.  
  
He was trapped. His silent war with the king came to consume his thoughts, and when he blurted this out to Thrain, his father did not seem surprised, or displeased.  
  
His next injuries were due not to orcs and goblins, but to another wyrm, barely more than a wyvern. It attacked a convoy outside of Erebor’s gates, and Thorin’s company was one of many called upon to deal with it. Thorin killed the beast himself, to great praise, but suffered the sting of its claws on his chest in return.  
  
Thror threw him in jail himself, harrying his grandson ahead of flustered guards, aggravated healers, his bellowing daughter-in-law, even sensible Fundin of the King’s Council, all trying and failing to intervene. The king roared that Thorin was disobedient, disloyal, and dishonored, beating him with the flat of his sword. He was left in his cell without treatment for his wounds and soon began to burn with fever. He began to believe he would die there, and knew his family must be prohibited from visiting him. But why? What had he done? Surely someone would come. . . .  
  
Thror changed his mind and came to free him several nights later, white-faced and red-eyed from weeping. He tended to Thorin’s wounds himself, something he had never before, apologizing and bemoaning the harm that had come to his beloved little boy. He acted as if death itself was sitting on his shoulder, not some bloody furrows that were only dangerous because they’d been left to fester.  
  
If he had been asked months ago, Thorin would have said that he would not mind Thror tending to him this way. Why should he? He would have thought it embarrassing, of course, to be so weakened in front of someone he so admired, but Thror had never made him feel ashamed of his failures.

But he minded now. Perhaps it was simply their ongoing fight, or just the strange intimacy of seeing his grandfather weep, but Thorin thought he might claw off his own skin in order to escape. More than anything else yet, it left him feeling vulnerable, trapped, and hideously unprepared. Even after Thorin was bandaged, he was not allowed to leave the cell, trapped in a nonsensical argument with the old man, who talked himself in and out of letting Thorin leave between one breath and another.

“I cannot lose you, my boy,” Thror had said, pressing their foreheads together, stroking his grandson’s dark hair. “Your mother and yourself came to me in my old age, when I had abandoned all hope for our line. You, and precious Dis and Frerin – what would I do without you? I would kill myself rather than live without you.”  
  
“Grandfather,” he’d blurted, shocked. He thought he might be sick.  
  
“I want only to see you safe, to see you inherit all that is yours.” Still pale, the king had withdrawn, with one last caress of Thorin’s face. “But I have only brought you harm. I am unwelcome here. I see that now. I should leave.”  
  
Thorin had frozen. He’d wanted nothing more than for Thror to go, but after what he’d just said— “No, grandfather. . . .“  
  
“Go to your rooms now, boy,” he’d said, stepping quiet and abashed into the hallway between cells. “Your mother is waiting for you. I will punish myself for what I have done, do not worry.”  
  
This did not make him feel any better. Thorin had levered himself out of bed, and then past the silent, watching king, painfully aware of the old man’s heavy gaze. He got halfway down the hallway and then turned back. “No, grandfather, come with me.”  
  
“No, no.” The old man smiled vaguely. “No, I must stay.”  
  
“Grandfather—“  
  
“Do not argue with me!” Horrifyingly, the old man began to weep, and then stopped as suddenly as he’d started. “Go, Thorin. Please, go.”  
  
Eventually, he did. He left Thror alone in the dungeons, equal parts agonized and relieved to be free. He found his friend Balin waiting just down the hall for him, Thrain in the shadows at his back, a heavy light of irony in his eyes.  
  
In a confused jumble, he told them that Thror had released him, and tried to convince them to go get the king, to draw him out of the dungeons and into a place better lit, with company and a place to rest. But Balin refused to see the seriousness of the situation, insisting that Thror simply needed time to think. Thorin couldn’t bear to admit that the old man had spoken of killing himself, and thus ran out of things to say. His will, after so long in silence and then strange conversation, was depleted.  
  
“Things will work out,” Balin said, trying to be supportive. “Here, let me take you to your rooms. Your mother is waiting.”  
  
Thrain was silent, steering his son with one hand on his shoulder. When they were alone, he leaned forward, his massive bulk looming and hot on his back.  
  
“You must not back down,” he said quietly, and slipped away before an exhausted Thorin could demand an explanation.  
  
It was only with hindsight that Thorin realized his father was setting him up.  
  
~  
  
“Thorin,” Bilbo said quietly. “I have never – I mean. What do you need me to do?”  
  
Thorin looked at him, silent and grim, and so Bilbo babbled on nervously. “On our journey, you sometimes spoke of Erebor with such wistfulness and longing. Do you remember?”  
  
Thorin nodded.  
  
“I always thought to myself,  _I’m going to help him get it all back, so it’s okay that I don’t know what to say_. I could tell that you suffered from a deep emotional pain, but I thought that if I could just help you reclaim your home, then . . . then all would be well.”  
  
He stopped, and Thorin averted his eyes, apparently listening and thinking hard. Perhaps his voice needed to rest, after speaking so much?   
  
Bilbo continued. “And when Fili and Kili were so badly injured, after the battle, I tried to keep you company. I tried keep your spirits up. You refused to admit that they would recover, and then after that, you thought they hated you. Do you remember that?” Bilbo half-laughed, half-exclaimed, shaking his head. “Nothing could be further from the truth! It took so long to get you to talk to them again, but you did, and once you were reconciled, I was so relieved. I was so glad to have been helpful.”  
  
He was expecting Thorin would take this point to interject and reassure him, as a hobbit would. Instead, he inclined his head instead, ever kingly, ever courtly, and waited.

“And now I simply don’t know what to do at all,” Bilbo admitted, with another nervous laugh. “If this were – I mean, if we were, hm.” Midway through, he decided not to say  _if you were a hobbit, I would embrace you and not let go for some time_ , deciding that it would be impolite. Perhaps awful family stories like this were common among dwarves? He had certainly never heard of anything like this happening in Hobbiton – if there was tension within a family, the rest of the extended relations heard about it in no time, and helped them sort it out. They would even call upon the Shirriffs if needed, although that was a rare thing, having happened only once in Bilbo’s entire life. Certainly this strange blend of violence, despair, and control would never have been left to fester.  
  
Rather than saying any of that, he went to sit in the chair at Thorin’s side, with no tables or anything else between them. Feeling distinctly awkward, not to mention flushed, Bilbo reached out and folded his hand around Thorin’s larger one. “It’s only that you deserved so much better,” he said, a little hoarsely. “And that I can see that there is more to come.”  
  
He wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do – he knew that Thorin was uncomfortable with displays of emotion, would have been able to tell even if the dwarf hadn’t admitted as such in private conversation. But although Thorin eyed their linked hands, he made no effort to move away.  
  
When Thorin finally spoke, it was almost as if Bilbo had not spoken at all. His thick, rough fingers moved over Bilbo’s haltingly, however, a silent reassuring note. “There was some truth in what he said. I was stubborn. I risked myself with no thought of the throne or my family.” He grimaced, and Bilbo knew – simply knew – that was thinking of Fili and Kili, and how he had risked them as well.  
  
“No, no, no,” Bilbo said. “No, he was not right, not at all. I mean, yes, you are often quite reckless, but that doesn’t at all justify what . . . what he did.” So strange, to think of King Thorin as someone who things were  _done to_  instead of someone who  _did things_  to others. “The only thing he was right about was loving you, even if it came to be distorted by the sickness.”  
  
The heavy fingers in his hand moved, not quite tightening their grip, not quite pulling away.  
  
“Tell me, please,” because he had to know, his imagination was suggesting the most awful things and he couldn’t endure much more, “what else happened. And how you came by such a strong distaste for being imprisoned. It got worse, didn’t it?”  
  
~  
  
Stubbornly, Thorin continued on his patrols. But after that encounter in the dungeon cell, the punishments stopped.  
  
He even forgot about them, to an extent, or perhaps simply forced them from of his mind, desperate to bury the feelings they awakened in him. It was strange, to look back on those times. They had felt all-encompassing at the time, but in hindsight, they had only been a brief period. It was strange, too, to realize how divided his mind had been. How he’d feared and hated with one part, and with the other, simply acted as if everything was normal, and nothing untoward was happening.  
  
He made time to spend with his grandfather, whether helping with his duties or simply lunching with him. It was like a return to his childhood days, and in response, the King was as warm and doting as he’d ever been. Dis and Frerin accompanied him much of the time, his mother and father at others, and when they were together, all was happiness and light.  
  
When Thorin collected injuries, ranging from scrapes and bruises to dangerous wounds, Thror often refused to acknowledge him at all. It was a relief when that happened. Otherwise he would visit, and he was as emotional and distraught as he’d been that night in the dungeons. Thorin did not know what to do during those long conversations, and became stiff and uncommunicative, nodding and agreeing whenever possible. He came to realize that what he said was immaterial; the next day, it was almost impossible to recall or resurrect the logic of the conversation, and Thror never acknowledged the meetings at all. Only when the next encounter began would the whole mess of pain and rage be brought up again.

In time, his attention to his grandfather lagged. He was older, now, and beginning to be caught up in the life and affairs of a young man. His relationship with his oldest friend, Deik, had become more intense, a respite of sorts as his family life became more confusing. A new friend, Gimvak, threatened to pull him in another direction, which Deik did not respond well to. Both were men under his direct command, which was a foolish decision – he never should have become entangled with them, but he was young, and it was a youthful mistake.  
  
Deik was as familiar and reassuring as home, and they knew each other well. His ‘interlocutions’ with Gimvak were accepted at first, but as they took up more of his time, Deik became more jealous. After an argument, Thorin agreed to stop seeing Gimvak rather than lose his oldest friend, and Deik relented. Their friendship never quite recovered from that tumultuous time.  
  
Although Thorin upheld the letter of his word, he neglected its spirit. His friendship with Gimvak, although no longer passionate, was still close, and the other dwarf occupied much of his thoughts. He trusted him with things that he told to no other, even Deik, and found himself making excuses to seek him out when things went wrong. He did not touch him, but the intimacy of their relationship was undeniable, and when their gazes met, Gimvak’s eyes burned for him.   
  
During lunch, when his siblings were distracted, Thorin shared some of his concerns with Thror. Not all of them, of course, and he named no names. When Thror brusquely stated that neither were worthy of his concerns, and that both should submit to his will and be his, he dropped the subject and never brought it up again.  
  
Things might have continued on in that way for some time, if not for Elrin, daughter of Glorin, who approached him at the guildhouse. She was a master of their shared craft, a beautiful dwarven woman, not of especially noteworthy lineage. Perhaps that was why she suggested a dalliance, instead of a courtship.  
  
Thorin had never romanced a female before, not truly. He had flirted, but had always been too conscious of his rank to go any further. Much safer with men, who were free to navigate the bonds of intimacy without the fear of conception. Even if he were to fall in love with and pledge himself to a man, he would still be free to bring a princess and future queen into the line, providing he could one willing to accept second-place in his heart.  
  
Either because Thorin was new to this type of romance, or because his feelings for Elrin were true, it came to consume him. He gave command of his patrols over to Deik so that he might spend more time with Elrin in bed. He laid with her all night and then much of the morning. Balin, coming to deliver reports from the Council, interrupted them at a late breakfast in which no clothes were had. Elrin laughed and dove beneath the furs on the bed, wrapping herself in them, as a red-faced Balin scolded Thorin for sleeping in so late. The prince picked up the scrolls that Balin threw at his head and promised, despite his laughter, to read them very attentively, yes Balin, all of them, he promised.  
  
He didn’t read them, of course. There were better things to do with his time.  
  
Gimvak and Deik competed for the honor of joining his and Elrin’s bedsport, a dizzying possibility that he’d never considered before that very moment. Dis caught him entering his rooms with Elrin and Deik and shrieked that her mind would never be the same; Frerin, the shameless gossip, promptly told the entire royal court.  
  
His parents sat him down for an excruciating dinner. Thrain scolded him for his carelessness and pressed him to put Elrin aside, lest the more conservative factions of the Council begin making noise about marriage, while his mother lectured him about risks of pregnancy. In the end, they left the choice of continuing his relationship up to him, but made him promise not to do all manner of embarrassing things with his female friend. Conception was difficult for dwarves, and it was rare for a child to be created without a great deal of work and diligence, but a young couple could be relied upon to supply that and more – as his mother pointed out, to his father’s roaring laughter and Thorin’s embarrassed sulk.

He did not quite keep his promise to them, but he consoled himself with the fact that they hadn’t really expected him to. And in any event, Elrin never did conceive.  
  
Their carrying-on – and a delightful carrying-on it had been, for a short while – was interrupted by an uptick in bandit attacks. These were neither orcs nor goblins, but Men, attacks in search of goods, not flesh. Thorin put aside his bedmates and resumed his patrols as the mountain’s mood grew dark under this new strain.  
  
Gimvak was killed. Deik, betrayed by the grief that Thorin could not hide, asked to be transferred to another company. Elrin soothed him with her presence, but Thorin no longer had a heart for games, thinking of his lost opportunities with Gimvak, and the sting of Deik’s departure. She remained his friend, but from a distance.  
  
A third dragon attack saw Thorin injured again.  
  
It was likely the combination of all these things – the attacks, his absorption with his love affairs, the court’s talk of a royal marriage, not to mention Thorin’s neglect of his grandfather – that saw things fall apart the way they did. Thorin was in the Halls of Healing, groggy and disoriented, when the Royal Guard came for him.  
  
They took him to the palace dungeons, and then lower, to a new cell carved beneath Thror’s new treasure horde, where his grandfather had come to spend so much of his days. And there they left him, alone, in the dark, for six months.  
  
~  
  
Bilbo found himself stroking Thorin’s fingers, made bold by the fact that Thorin still hadn’t pulled away. When he spoke of Gimvak and Deik and Elrin, the tips of Bilbo’s pointed ears heated, but no blush touched his cheeks. He was used to the ways that dwarves conducted themselves, and truly, saw no need to be judgmental.  
  
And indeed, it wasn’t as if he was a sterling example of hobbit respectability anymore, was he? Not that he’d, ahem, carried on that way with any fellows – hobbit, dwarven, or otherwise – but he had run off on an adventure, thank you very much. And then moved into a royal suite under a mountain! He had an official title of King’s Advisor or some such poppycock, and he did spend most his time stopping the King’s Council from killing each other, but he knew Thorin simply wanted an excuse to keep him close. And even if he dared never bridge the careful gap between them, he could admit it to himself – he wanted to be kept.  
  
But he hadn’t gone  _completely_  dwarven. At least not yet. Or ever! Right, not ever. If he ever went back to the Shire, it would be to settle down with a nice hobbit lass, that was right. He certainly hadn’t  _picked anything up_  while living in Erebor, oh no.  
  
Quite prudently, Bilbo elected to discontinue that train of thought, or sure enough his cheeks would be flushing, and likely the rest of him too. He was, he reflected, the worst of liars at times. Usually highly inconvenient times.  
  
When Thorin mentioned he’d been imprisoned for six months, Bilbo forgot all about his impertinent thoughts. The blood drained right out of him, he could feel it, could feel cold rushing into his face and limbs.  
  
“Six months,” Bilbo repeated slowly.  
  
Thorin suddenly twisted his hand, capturing the hobbit’s fingers. “Don’t fret,” he ordered. Impossibly, he seemed amused now, a hidden smile rumbling in his deep voice. “It was long ago, and I am fine.”  
  
“Don’t fret – it was long ago – you just said that – I can’t believe – Thorin!” Bilbo glared at him quite sternly, which made the king lift an eyebrow, nothing more. “It wasn’t  _long ago_ , you lump, it was today! It was – it was hours ago, it was you trapped in a little room with Bofur and, and.” He stopped himself before he was sick.  
  
Thorin’s amusement faded back into grimness. “And a dead man,” he finished, because Bilbo could not.  
  
“There was no light?” Bilbo inquired weakly, for all that he knew the answer.  
  
Thorin’s dark head tilted questioningly. “Then or now?”  
  
“Thorin,” he reprimanded.  
  
The king grimaced. “No.”  
  
“Thorin,” he murmured, and shook his head hard. “That is – that is quite easily the most awful I’ve ever heard. My heart is pounding.” He couldn’t stop imagining what it must have been like, what Thorin must have  _felt_. . . . “I’ve read stories about it. There was one king of Men who—“

“I know,” Thorin interrupted, and it occurred to Bilbo that he was being insensitive. “He was driven mad by his solitary confinement.” Upon searching Bilbo’s face, he relented and added. “I read those stories too. Afterwards. But I was not driven mad. Not quite.”  
  
Bilbo closed his eyes and shook his head, despairing.  
  
“When I was freed,” Thorin said, his eyes growing distant as he peered into the past, “my mother and my siblings were waiting. They sat with me for days. They slept with me in my bed, held me, fed me, convinced me to speak again. I had scars, from injuries I’d done to myself. . . .” Thorin paused, looking down at his blue-clad chest. “They bathed me and tended to my wounds, used salves to soften the scars so that I could regain my movement. I was never alone.”  
  
Bilbo nodded.  
  
“It was not all bad.” Thorin held up a hand when Bilbo would have shouted in protest. “I mean only that it ended, and although Thrain and Thror were . . . themselves, the rest of my family was with me. I knew then that they would always be with me.”  
  
Bilbo closed his eyes, bit his lip, and nodded. “And Thrain and Thror?” he asked. His voice was hoarse, perhaps with the scream that he was keeping inside through nothing but willpower. It was the first he’d used their names, he realized distantly. Usually he called them  _the king_  or  _the prince_ , and sometimes,  _your father_  and  _your grandfather_. He would never call them that again.  
  
“My father never acknowledged that anything had happened,” Thorin said calmly. “And as for Thror. . . .”  
  
Bilbo could scarcely breathe. “What did he do?”  
  
“He asked me,” Thorin said grimly, “if I had learned to obey.” His eyes returned from that far-away place. “And I said yes.”  
  
Bilbo shook his head again and leaned forward, hunched over the king’s hand.  
  
“I named a successor for my Company,” Thorin said slowly, continuing the story that he’d been telling for the better part of three hours. “I called off all patrols. The closest I came to leaving the mountain was to walk the battlements, to oversee exercises and repairs. I met with my grandfather every week, very regularly, for once an hour. We spoke of . . . simple things, business-like things, with no laughter or smiles.” Bilbo, who dared not look up lest the mess his feelings show, marveled that he could hear when the corner of Thorin’s mouth turned down bitterly. “I never trusted him again, of course.”  
  
“No,” Bilbo murmured agreement, his other hand joining the first in its desperate clasp. Thorin squeezed back. “I can see how you wouldn’t.”  
  
“And he finished his treasure room,” Thorin continued heavily. His other hand came up to clasp the nape of Bilbo’s neck. “And he became more and more distant, more and more obsessed. My father took more and more power. And I became more and more . . . myself.” Thorin exhaled sharply, a scornful little noise.  
  
 _More and more grim_ , Bilbo thought, shivering. And so this was the ending of what had begun as such a light, fanciful tale. A little prince and a great king, marveling at a beautiful stone together! And with such wise words uttered.

Thorin’s hand stroked the side of Bilbo’s face. “I regret burdening you with this,” Thorin admitted, and Bilbo’s head flew up.  
  
“No, no, no you don’t,” Bilbo said. Thorin huffed an amused little snort and Bilbo tugged one hand free to fist in it in the light fabric of his undertunic. “You regret telling me the truth? You regret letting me see you?”  
  
“I should,” Thorin said. “I don’t want to drive you away.”  
  
“As if you could!”  
  
Thorin shook his head sharply, a stern negative. “I thought of that prison, when we were in the treasure room. Before we encountered Smaug.” He breathed the name with hate and a hint of a sneer, as all dwarves did. “We were standing directly above it. I thought of it, looking at you, and understood the first time why my grandfather . . . sought to imprison that which he loved, but defied him.”  
  
They sat together, winded, united in breathlessness by that admission.  
  
“How do I—“ Thorin started, brow furrowed, and Bilbo knew what he was going to say. Knew he was going to breathe doubts and uncertainty, summon the spectre of his sickness, and he knew that he wasn’t going to have answer for him. What answer could he give? They had avoided disaster once by some miracle, and in his heart of hearts, Bilbo knew there was a possible future where disaster found them anyway. Where he did not have this dwarf sitting in front of him, so strong and alive, baring his heart.  
  
Instead, he pressed forward and kissed him, rough and hard. He wasn’t very good, he would admit it. He’d never kissed a male before. Or a dwarf. Or a male dwarf.  
  
And Thorin probably hadn’t been kissing any hobbits, but he had a century or so more experience than Bilbo, so he got them sorted out.   
  
“This wasn’t at all how I intended this to end,” Bilbo admitted in a rush. He felt the breath of air as Thorin huffed again, as good as a laugh from the taciturn king. He stroked back the dark hair and felt positively dizzy with the possibilities. Treasures, treasures, treasures. His life, and this strange confluence of valuable things.  _It was only mine for a short while_ , Thror had said, wise before darkness claimed him.   
  
“No more unpleasant memories?” he asked, half-begging for rescue.  
  
“No more,” Thorin promised, and drew him in. 


End file.
